


Beginning

by L56895



Series: Kinktober 2020 [1]
Category: Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: F/M, First Time, Kinktober, Kinktober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:48:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26779885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L56895/pseuds/L56895
Summary: Day One for kinktober this year: First Times. If he didn’t already realise it was her first time, it would be written all over her face.
Relationships: Nooj/Paine (Final Fantasy X-2)
Series: Kinktober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952539
Kudos: 3





	Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I’m attempting Kinktober again this year! I can’t promise myself that I will manage every day, but it’s a nice break from everything else going on in the world!
> 
> The first three days focus on Paine and Nooj, I haven’t decided what else I will do with them yet.

The storm rocked the ship as it finally came to an uneasy rest in Kilika Port. Paine gripped the edge of the railing as the deck beneath her feet lurched dangerously, daring to reach up and push the wet hair out of her face when she was certain the anchor had been lowered and she would not be upended, unceremoniously, in to the dark waves. Quickly, and before she could change her mind and beg the captain to take her back to Luca, she descended the gangplank to find solid footing on the dock.

The lights were out across the port, extinguished by the heavy rain and violent winds, and it took her a moment to get her bearings and orientate herself along the wooden paths. The ship from Luca had been the last one of the day- boarded on a whim and without preamble- and she had failed to take in to account how dark it would be when they touched the shore on the island hours later. To her left, a fellow passenger was watching her darkly- chided for his advances some way in to journey- and she hurried off before anyone else could engage her, mindful that no one, save a squealing Rikku, knew where she was.

The wind continued to howl around her, catching fabric from the wooden huts which made up the homes of the port residents- mainly former Youth Leaguers- and the island’s indoor markets. Thick cloth that whipped out at her like a spectral fiend. Uninviting, cruel and a far cry from the last time she had been here. Kilika was a place to reunite lost lovers, not to get thrust out in to an unforgiving sea. She snorted at the irony.

Still, she had made it and while the wooden boards that made up the town’s walkways felt as unsteady as the boat and the wind and rain had soaked through to her bones she had made a decision and it was too late to go back now. The alternative would be to wait for the first ship out in the morning; she didn’t cherish the thought of curling up between crates on the port edge to sleep and, besides, she had an open invitation to come here whenever she was ready.

‘Ready’ as a concept seemed laughable, but she felt close to it, at least. Close enough to take an uncalculated and completely uncharacteristic gamble.

Drawing her arms around herself to shield from a little of the cold, Paine made her way to a newer part of the port town- further built by the Youth League before their disbandment as part of Nooj’s penance. Counting the doorways- they all still looked largely the same in the grey hues of a storm- she stopped at one far along the easterly path. Standing alone, no major adornments at the windows, the plain fabric that made up a door illuminated by a sudden flash of lightning... not a home but something liminal and waiting. She gave a sharp rap of her knuckles against the doorframe and stepped back, hugging her arms around herself in an attempt to stave off the chill.

When he pulled aside the door covering and stared at her she made no attempt to move forward. Simply met his gaze with a questioning look as the rain battered her skin and flooded her hair in to her eyes.

“Fayth! Paine!” Nooj reached for her with his living hand, finally, and pulled her roughly in to the shelter of his home, “What are you-? You’re freezing!”

_I’ve finally come,_ she thought but did not vocalise, taken aback by the feel of his rough palm on her arm. Callouses from years of handling a sword and then a gun, skin toughened by grit and a life hard-lived.

Suddenly out of the pelting rain, she found herself bundled roughly in to a blanket pulled from his bed and then folded in to his arms- one warm, one cool- as she shivered against his chest. She felt heavy, weighed down by sodden leathers and anchored in to place by his arms. Rather dimly, she registered the sound of her sword hitting the floor as he unbuckled the straps that held the sheath to her hip and looked up at his worried face. The single candle burning on the dresser cast flickering shadows across his cheeks, glazed his glasses so she only caught the briefest glimpses of his eyes, but the set of his jaw betrayed his concern as he pulled back slightly to look down at her. If the hard lump in her throat wasn’t enough, her teeth chattering painfully silenced her completely and she stood there numbly, waiting for him to make the first move.

“Take these off,” he said, softly but firmly, running a fingertip along the leather straps and patches that made up her warrior’s guise. “We need to get you dry before you catch a chill.”

Feeling warm again should have been a priority, she knew, and she could already feel the ache of cold in her bones, stretching itself along her back and through her limbs. But it seemed more important that he know why she was there. That she wanted _him_ more than she was afraid of _them._ It may have taken a long time- they could count the time since Vegnagun had fallen, and he had whispered to her that he would wait as long as she needed, in months rather than days or weeks. But her tongue felt heavy in her mouth and words failed her- so unused to using them to express any real feelings she was.

“I came here...” she started lamely, hands shivering as she helped him to shuck the cold, wet leather. When she was clad in just her undergarments he pulled her close again, his warm hand coming up to cup her head against his chest. His machina arm hung chastely at his side, gripping his cane for support as she leant in to him, and she had a brief moment of longing that he would bring it up to cradle her properly again, the cold be damned. She breathed deeply, one shuddering sigh, and pressed her palms against his chest before trying again. “I came here because I’m ready... to talk or to... I don’t know.”

Nooj said nothing, but his grip on her tightened just briefly in response.

They stayed like that for a few moments, listening to the rain pounding the roof of his hut. Another flash of lightening lit up the room and focussed her attention on his bed directly in her eyeline. She could swear it looked dishevelled- had she woken him? How late was it?

She felt him swallow gently then, finally, bring his left arm and around her protectively.

“This kind of storm is unusual in Kilika. It’s made people nervous... reminds them of Sin,” he said quietly.

Small talk? Seriously? Still, he had broken the silence and for that she was grateful.

“Yuna thinks the instability on the Farplane after Vegnagun is still having an effect,” she replied, pulling out of his arms and gripping the blanket tighter around her. He let her go, let the fabric run through his fingertips, then joined her at the window.

“She thinks it should calm down again, but it is strange. They even had a brief shower in Bikanel according to Cid.”

The thought of Bikanel brought her back to where she was. Alone, with Nooj, for the first time in two years. The last time had been on the desert island itself, under a thick, dark sky and before they had been bundled with all the other recruits in to a ship that was almost unfit for the purpose of traversing the harsh sea from Bikanel to Mushroom Rock Road. That night she had admitted to herself that she was more than a little bit in love with him, let herself be convinced that he might be the same for her. Nothing much had happened beyond a few lingering gazes, the briefest of caresses when he bade her goodnight. But the feel of his hand brushing her hair from her face had lingered long in to sleep and she had dreamt of him, chastely but undeniably longingly.

It was easy, when she stopped overthinking it, to turn and kiss him. On unsteady tiptoes- she had shed her damp boots along with the rest of her leathers and even with the height they gave her he was much, much taller than she was- hands pressed against his shoulder for balance until he dropped his cane and kissed her back with an almost imperceptible sigh.

Not their first kiss- that had been against a backdrop of sunset and warmth and the promise of the future ahead of them on the Highroad before being shattered by gunfire and heartbreak. Back then she had been younger, unguarded and unhurt and relishing in a first kiss after so many weeks of longing and wondering. Now, not much older but a lot more jaded, it felt different to be pressed against him. They weren’t running from anything, weren’t facing so many battles just to live and exist. His lips were gentler than they had been back then, his breathe unlaboured, but she sensed him holding back somewhat. Something warm and fluttering stirred in the pit of her; she pulled back and regarded him boldly.

“I’m still a little cold,” she whispered meaningfully, watching as understanding dawned on his face and he walked her gently backwards towards his bed. Her calves hit the bed frame and she sank down, pulling her to him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

In truth, her heart pounded so hard that she could swear it could be heard above the roar of waves outside.

He stopped short of kissing her again, though he was so close he could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips, and she wrapped her fingers around one of the straps across his chest to pull him close, found him unyielding.

“You’re sure?” he asked quietly, barely a whisper against her lips. An uncharacteristic hitch in his voice, she pulled back so she could meet her eye as she nodded firmly.

Then he was on her, pressing her down in to the mattress as he hooked his fingers around the back of her knee to pull her legs apart. His hips drove in to her, pinning her underneath him as he parted her lips and moaned. The machina leg felt cool against her bare skin and she shivered, relished in the warmth of the rest of him and the heat rising inside her. Excitement suppressing any other emotions, she was surprised by her own boldness at laying bare to him; the last remnants of her clothing came off easily and she stretched her arms above her head as he trailed his lips down the length of her body. When he reached her thighs- breath and lips hot between her legs- she almost gave way to embarrassment but found herself bodily flipped on to her stomach, his teeth nipping across her rear and up her back. He bit her shoulder, snaked his hand between her body and the mattress and touched her. She moaned, delirious, until he pulled back and guided her back to face him.

The buckles at his chest came open easily enough under her fingers- she had enough practice with her own after all- and when he had shed the last of the belts and straps that kept the padding across his shoulder in place and Paine was reaching for the zip that ran down the front of his breeches, Nooj licked the pad of his thumb and reached for the candle that was their only source of light.

“Wait-“ Paine grasped for his wrist and let herself be pulled upright by him, “Leave it, please.”

Nooj looked pained, his lips set in a grim line.

“The scars...” his voice was barely audible against the wind that still whipped against the walls of his hut outside. She kissed the corner of his mouth to ease the tension she saw there, soothed away his protests even as the words stung at the edges of her.

_Repulsive. You shouldn’t have to see..._

She hushed him gently, found his mouth hungry against hers, her vulnerability mirrored in his. Although her tongue was clumsy she relished in a strange deftness in her fingertips as she pulled at the remaining fastenings of his clothes and pushed the thick fabric off of his shoulders.

If he hadn’t already guessed that this was her first time she knew it would be written all over her face as she watched, enthralled, when he pulled off the remains of his clothes. He stood- awkwardly without the help of his cane- and carefully folded the red fabric over the back of a chair. She yearned for him to touch her again, to press his body up against hers and show her what she had been missing all these years. Instead she contented herself with taking him in- every raised welter of a scar that seemed so natural on him; the painful melding of tanned skin and the waxy trail of scars that bridged the gap between his living body and the machina; the smoothness of his living limbs against the harshness of the machina that made up his left side.

Briefly, she wished she had let him extinguish the candle to hide her blush when she felt the heat rise in her cheeks as he turned to face her. In all her fantasies about them, under the cloudless sky of a Bikanel night, she’d never got to this point, never imagined what it would be like to see him completely exposed. She blushed deeply, let her eyes rest at his hand- stroking himself as he watched her. Certain that he would chide her for her naïveté, she pulled the thick blanket up against her chest modestly, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. She was aware of a sort of girlishness in herself that she had never felt before- had always shut down for fear of betraying a weakness- but now she found she was too tired to hide it. Too exhausted to be anything other than honest.

“I’ve never-“ she paused, gulped hard to compose herself as he lowered himself painfully down on to the bed, “I’ve never been with anyone before.”

The briefest flicker of surprise played around Nooj’s face- a curious twitch of his eyebrow. A familiar sense of irritation, a defensive severity, bubbled up in her and she pushed it back down.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like... I don’t know... like you’re surprised.”

“I am surprised,” he said simply. There was no hint of disappointment or mocking in his voice, Nooj could at least always be trusted to mean what he said, and Paine let the blanket slip back down. Nooj’s hand had stilled, but she still watched him carefully, curiosity winning over self-consciousness, until he spoke again. “I thought for sure you would have.”

Paine shrugged peevishly. Nooj laughed and cupped her chin gently, guiding her face up to look at him.

“I thought I could never deserve you. I thought for sure you would find someone else, someone worthy of you.”

A lump formed in Paine’d throat as she took him in- this strangely sensitive man who had encompassed so many of her thoughts over the past two years. Him, not worthy?

“I never...” she began, reaching up to press her hand to his against her cheek, “I never wanted anyone other than you. Even when I thought you’d betrayed us... it was so hard.”

She closed her eyes, expected him to pull away from her and was surprised when his hand guided her closer and she felt his lips on hers. Surprised further still when his hands wandered and she felt cool machina between her legs- exploring, entering her. She’d ended up on her knees and she moved experimentally, a slow up and down as he gripped her hair in his right hand and held her head firm. Then she was flipped on to her back and it was the turn of his living hands to begin their exploration. He moaned with her, fingers slick inside her; stroking and probing until she could bear it no more and she grasped at his wrist, held his hand still while she rode a wave of pleasure.

When they came together she was shocked, briefly, by the pain that made her bite her lip to stop herself from crying out. Nooj- too preoccupied with trailing kisses down her neck- appeared not to notice, but his hips slowed their pace and then it wasn’t pain but pleasure again, radiating through her with every languid thrust.

“Paine...” Nooj moaned her name against her ear, warm breath rolling across her neck and she held him tighter as he shuddered on top of her. Later, she knew, there would hard conversations and difficult moments; but for this moment, she contented herself with the weight of him on top of her and the sound of his deep, satiated breaths mingling with the slowly-calming waves outside.


End file.
